Van vs Valkyrie

[FrankTrollman]

What is an especially dumb idea

Well, it's usually no on purpose. If you give leaders no special orders, they will naturally migrate to stand in the rearmost squad towards the rear. Assuming for the moment that most or all of the melee units move forward, that leaves the archers in the rear, and unassigned leaders just accumulate there. That's why Neutrals almost always end up with Commanders in the rear of the crossbowmen block.

Interestingly, routed units don't count. If you "Fire Archers" yourself and chase away the enemy bowmen, the commanders will race forward to attempt to group with the infantry who are still moving forward. If you want to increase your kill count (or snag magic items held by enemy leaders), start with the archers and then move on to remaining forces.

-Frank

[The Panther]

The valkyrie is a pretty good national troop. Lots of nations would love to have a sacred and strong flying troop like that. Only Mictlan (that I can recall off the top of my head) has a sacred flying troop. But vans are SO strong that they are generally built instead. It is not really a fair comparison since the van is perhaps the single best national troop in the game for the unit cost.

As stated above, valkyries are best used as support troops on hold and attack rear. With a W9 or F9 bless, they wreak massive havok in enemy ranks and sometimes even fly right over the nasty advancing infantry. Also, most bodyguards don't stand much of a chance against a bunch of valkyries.

[Cainehill]

The Panther said:
With a W9 or F9 bless, [valkyries] wreak massive havok in enemy ranks and sometimes even fly right over the nasty advancing infantry. Also, most bodyguards don't stand much of a chance against a bunch of valkyries.

D10 is also an interesting bless to use with them, giving the valkyries an AoE fear effect which can be used to rout the enemy archers and other troops even more expiditiously.